Influential US senator to visit during diplomatic row ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban warned the government Tuesday it would punish any move to release a US consulate employee accused of murdering two Pakistanis in a case that has further strained ties with Washington. US Senator John Kerry was due in Pakistan as part of the Obama administration's efforts to resolve the crisis. Raymond Davis, the US consular employee jailed in the Pakistani city of Lahore for shooting two Pakistanis last month, says he acted in self-defence during an armed robbery. Washington says Davis has diplomatic immunity and should be released but the Pakistani government, fearful of a backlash from Pakistanis already wary of the United States and enraged by the shooting, says the matter should be decided in court. “If (Pakistani) rulers hand him over to America then we will target these rulers. If Pakistani courts cannot punish Davis then they should hand him over to us,” said Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq. “We will give exemplary punishment to the killer Davis.” On Thursday, the United States is expected to present a petition to a Lahore court to certify that Davis has diplomatic immunity and should be released. The warning from the Taliban, which has kept up suicide bombings to destabilise the government despite army offensives, underscores the charged atmosphere surrounding the case. The issue has become a lightning rod for anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, which the US counts as an important, if unreliable, ally in its war against militancy. Davis' fate is certain to come up when Kerry, the influential chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and member of President Barack Obama's Democratic party, meets Pakistani officials.
